Gloria Gutman, PhD, has been honoured with the King Charles III Coronation Medal, which recognizes individuals who have made a significant contribution to Canada, or an outstanding achievement abroad that brings credit to Canada. She will receive the medal in a ceremony March 21.
A research associate and professor emeritus at Simon Fraser University, Gutman founded the Gerontology Research Centre and the department of gerontology at SFU, serving as director of both units from 1982 to 2005. She is the author/editor of 23 books, the most recent (with Claire Robson and Jen Marchbank) titled Elder Abuse in the LGBTQ2SA+ Community (Springer, 2023).
Dr. Gloria Gutman (photo from SFU)
During her career, Gutman has held many prominent roles, including president of the Canadian Association on Gerontology, president of the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics and president of the International Network for Prevention of Elder Abuse. Currently, she is president of the North American chapter of the International Society for Gerontechnology, vice-president of the International Longevity Centre-Canada and a member of the research management committee of the Canadian Frailty Network. Previously, she served on the World Economic Forum’s Council on the Ageing Society, World Health Organization’s expert advisory panel on aging and health, and the CIHR-Institute of Aging advisory board.
“I am grateful to SFU for having nominated me for this award.
Developing the gerontology department and Gerontology Research Centre, serving on boards, organizing conferences, and advocating for seniors in other ways nationally and internationally, has been a privilege and a pleasure,” said Gutman. “It could not have taken place without the strong support of FASS [the faculty of arts and social sciences] and senior administration.”
In 2012, Gutman was awarded a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal by the Government of Canada and, in 2016, she was appointed to the Order of Canada, the country’s highest civilian honour.
– Courtesy Simon Fraser University
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Lana Marks Pulver (photo from Jewish Federation)
Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver is proud to congratulate its board chair, Lana Marks Pulver, who was honoured by Jewish Federations of North America with the Kipnis-Wilson/Friedland Award for exemplifying the higheststandards of philanthropy and volunteerism. Marks Pulver’s selection for this award is a testament to her exceptional dedication and leadership.
– Courtesy Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver
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The Louis Brier Jewish Aged Foundation is pleased to announce the appointment of long-time volunteer leaders Marie Doduck and Lee Simpson as co-chairs of the 2025/26 campaign. Please join board directors Harry Lipetz, Rick Cohen, Mel Moss, Bernard Pinsky, David Zacks, Michelle Karby and Abbe Chivers, and staff Ayelet Cohen Weil and Wendy Habif in congratulating and thanking them for their tireless commitment to our Jewish elderly.
Event co-chairs Lee Simpson, left, and Helen Pinsky. (photo by Pat Johnson)
Celebration and admiration were the overriding emotions Sept. 5 at the Louis Brier Jewish Aged Foundation’s first community social event since the pandemic.
The festive occasion, which took place at Heritage Hall on Main Street, brought together supporters of the foundation and highlighted five individuals who have made profound contributions to the community. The question each was asked was “How do you do it?”
Emceed by Ayelet Cohen Weil, executive director of Louis Brier Jewish Aged Foundation, and hosted by co-chairs Helen Pinsky and Lee Simpson, the evening featured plenty of shmoozing over a kosher buffet.
Pinsky wandered the room, posing questions to individuals who have made a range of contributions to philanthropic life, beginning with Gary Averbach, who raised $600,000 for cancer research by walking from Calgary to Vancouver in weather that ranged from snow and slush to 40 degrees Celsius. His answer to the question “How did you do it?” was straightforward.
“One step at a time,” he said.
Gary Averbach (photo by Pat Johnson)
Averbach walks every day, and it struck him that he could string a lot of days together and make a major trudge across two provinces to raise money for a good cause. When a beloved cousin was diagnosed with cancer, Averbach took the opportunity to do good. His advice to people about getting involved in charitable causes was equally frank.
“I don’t know anybody who gets involved who hates it,” he said, insisting this is true even when the task at hand is something one doesn’t think they like.
“I never really enjoyed fundraising but apparently I was good at it,” he said. “It was always easier for me to write a cheque rather than ask for it. But I enjoyed the camaraderie, being with people, allegiances that were the same as mine. It was one of the most enjoyable periods of my life.”
He deflected the idea that his fundraising walk was selfless.
“I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t enjoyed it, so it was a really selfish thing,” he said.
Marie Doduck (photo by Pat Johnson)
Marie Doduck, who published A Childhood Unspoken, her memoir of being a child survivor of the Holocaust and the life she made in Canada, was asked how she did it.
“It took me 40 years to write this book,” she said. “I’ve been fighting antisemitism my whole life. Since I came to Canada as a child, antisemitism was here. Survival is something survivors do. We have no other choice, so we do it.”
Since the book was released, as part of the Azrieli Foundation Holocaust Survivor Memoirs Program, Doduck has been traveling extensively speaking about the book, her life and the lessons to be learned from her experiences.
“The book is still in demand,” she said. “It’s coming out in French. [Doduck’s first language]. And the most surprised person alive is me. Why are people reading my book when it was a personal thing to do for my children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren?”
She called her decades of community volunteering, “a love affair” and acknowledged that, like Averbach, there are parts she doesn’t enjoy but she does them because she can.
“Fundraising makes me ill, but I’m very good at it,” she said.
Yvette Porte said she does what she does because she is inspired by the examples of others.
Yvette Porte (photo by Pat Johnson)
“I feel that I get my inspiration from all the people I’ve met, the people who have come before me,” she said. “My mom always wanted to learn. Just before she passed away, a month before, she said, ‘I think I want to learn how to play mah jongg now.’ She was so interested in everything that went on around her.
“My dad, who believed family was the most important thing in the world, that we always had to stick together and support each other – I learned that from him. My kids, they always learned about giving, about supporting the community…. It’s inspiring to be with everyone and I hope to pass on an example of supporting your community and supporting your family to my grandchildren and great-grandchildren.”
Sylvia Cristall spoke of the lesson she gained from her family growing up in Winnipeg.
“I couldn’t afford a lot growing up, but whatever we had, my dad said, even if you have $10, $5, you give it if you can,” she shared. “When you get older and you’re earning money, every bit counts. That’s how I grew up.”
Sylvia Cristall (photo by Pat Johnson)
After moving to Los Angeles and then meeting and marrying Lorne Cristall, the couple started a family in Vancouver. A newcomer to the city, Sylvia asked Lorne as they were driving by 41st and Oak what that building was. He told her it was the Louis Brier Home and Hospital and that they do superb work.
“That was when we were very young,” she recalled, “and he had this feeling for the elderly. He always did. I knew that one day he would be doing something for it.” And he did. The late Lorne Cristall served as president of the Louis Brier, as well as of Vancouver Talmud Torah elementary school and Congregation Beth Israel. She is especially proud, she said, that her children have followed in their parents’ philanthropic footsteps.
Ken Levitt, the former chief executive officer of the Louis Brier and a current director on the board of the Weinberg Residence, was the last one to whom the question “How do you do it?” was posed.
“I wanted to make a difference,” he said. Levitt spoke of his earlier career, which was a two-decade stint in child welfare.
Ken Levitt (photo by Pat Johnson)
“I loved it,” said Levitt. “I worked my way from a protective worker to a senior manager.”
When he was looking for a change, he considered becoming the children’s guardian for southern Alberta but the other opportunity that presented itself was at the Louis Brier. “I fell in love with Louis Brier,” he said.
“I folded laundry and I stacked dishes for the dishwasher,” he recalled. “I got to know our residents – probably hundreds, maybe thousands, that I got to know. People who are Holocaust survivors, doctors and lawyers, people who were janitors, every walk of life. Everyone had a special story to tell because they were all special.”
And, he added: “We had a balanced budget for 16 years.”
Cohen Weil welcomed the audience, explaining that the event was a thank you to donors who have made the organization’s successes possible. While the evening was celebratory, she took a moment to recognize the pain the community has experienced since the Oct. 7 attacks and credited “our peculiar resilience as a people,” Jewish positivity, hope and compassion.
“This evening was to say thank you,” she said. “We all hope our lives will be long and independent. However, for those of us who are not so fortunate in that regard, the Louis Brier is there. We continually strive to be a better, more caring and more compassionate place for those who live here.”
The event also featured video greetings from Dr. David Keselman, CEO of the Louis Brier and the Weinberg, who was out of town, and a video featuring residents evoked the spirit of the home.
Harry Lipetz, president of the Louis Brier Jewish Aged Foundation, thanked the sponsors, who ensured that no foundation funds were expended for the gathering. These included Cristall Group Investments and the Cristall family, ZLC Financial Group, Porte Communities, the Simpson family, the Marsid Family Foundation, and WestCana Services, which is the culinary provider to the Brier.
The co-chairs, Pinsky and Simpson, spoke emotionally of the contributions the Louis Brier makes to the lives of elders in the community.
Attendees at the Nov. 16 event at the Louis Brier Home and Hospital check out the Gallery of Donors Wall. (photo from Louis Brier Jewish Aged Foundation)
On Nov. 16, the Louis Brier Jewish Aged Foundation honored donors on its Gallery of Donors Wall, located in the walkway linking the Louis Brier Home and Hospital and the Weinberg Residence. The afternoon celebration, which was attended by more than 100 people, was led by event chair Lisa Sirlin, who introduced foundation president Harry Lipetz.
Jazz duo Dave Ivaz and Julie Boton were among the entertainers on Nov. 16. (Photo from Louis Brier Jewish Aged Foundation)
Lipetz spoke of the importance of donors to the vitality of both the Louis Brier and the Weinberg. He also thanked Dvori Balshine, who retired last month from the foundation after 12 years as its director of development.
Louis Brier board chair Arny Abramson thanked all of the donors as well for their continued support and chief executive officer Bob Breen detailed how the funding from the foundation is being used. Breen emphasized that the Louis Brier is the only home in the Lower Mainland that staffs several full-time occupational therapists and physiotherapists, as well as a full-time music therapist.
The Sunday afternoon event hosted donors, friends, family and residents, who enjoyed performances by the JCC Or Chadash dancers, musical interludes from Annette Wertman on piano, and the jazz duo Dave Ivaz and Julie Boton. The audience was in full spirits as they moved from the social hall to the boardroom, where the Zalkow family were honored for their donation towards its renovation and a plaque was unveiled, honoring the Edith Lando Charitable Foundation for its donation of audiovisual equipment.
Attendees then moved on to the Gallery of Donors Wall, where Rabbi Yitzchak Wineberg was on hand to say Shehecheyanu, as guests enjoyed a l’chaim. The wall was marked with green, yellow and purple bows, delineating donors who participated in the Maintain, Sustain and Enhance 2014-2016 campaign, plaques moving to a higher category and new donors on the wall. Final words were given by Balshine, who conveyed her appreciation to all the donors, emphasizing that their support is vital to the Brier and the Weinberg Residence.
A reception at the Weinberg, hosted by Chabad Catering with music by Wertman, Ivaz and Boton, concluded with another performance by the Or Chadash dancers. Guests went home with a chocolate confection donated by Chabad Catering.
Dvori Balshine has served the Vancouver Jewish community, in one capacity or another, for 45 years. She is retiring in November from her latest post – director of development at Louis Brier Jewish Aged Foundation – and she talked to the Independent about her life and work.
“We came to Vancouver from Israel in 1969,” she said. As an educator who studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, she found a job right away. She taught Hebrew and Jewish history until she fell into fundraising, almost by accident.
Dvori Balshine is set to retire. (photo from Louis Brier Jewish Aged Foundation)
“I was hired by the JCC as a cultural director around 1980,” she recalled. “I wanted to start an art gallery and a Jewish authors festival, wanted to do events, but there was never enough money. So, I met with the community members and asked for their support. Our biggest fundraiser was held at the Oakridge movie theatre. They had a movie theatre at the time. It was the opening night of Chorus Line, and it was unbelievably successful.”
With the funds raised by this and similar events on behalf of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, Balshine was at the root of the Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery and one of the founders, together with Cherie Smith, of the JCCGV Jewish Book Festival. When Hebrew University asked her, as one of its alumni, to head their Western Canada division, she agreed. For 17 years, she served as the executive director in Western Canada.
“I raised lots of money for them, sent many students to study abroad, organized other specific projects. But then I thought: I should work for my own community.” In 2003, she came to the Louis Brier Jewish Aged Foundation.
In the 12 years she has worked at the foundation, she has led many campaigns, and established endowment funds and awards. As well, more than 600 art pieces were acquired as donations from local Jewish artists. These works hang on the walls of Louis Brier Home and Hospital and of the Weinberg Residence, making the rooms and corridors more like those of a home, less institutional. A bus and a piano, a dental clinic and a garden sculpture, multiple renovations around the home and the Gallery of Donors Wall – they all owe their existence to Balshine and her crew, to their continuous efforts to improve the quality of life of the residents. She was also active in community outreach programs, including, but not limited to, numerous musical events and lecture series, book launches and octogenarians’ celebrations.
“My dream was to leave the organization with $10 million, and we are at $8.5 million,” she wrote in her reflections of her most important activities at Louis Brier. “It is not that we didn’t raise it, we raised more, however, the demand from the home and Weinberg annually has been so great that we have only been able to invest and grow to this amount.”
She sounded modest, as if raising almost a million a year is a trifle, but for anyone else, it would be a major accomplishment, even the achievement of a lifetime.
“I believe in the mission of the organization I work for,” she said. “I do it with all my heart, my mind and my might. Of course, there are multiple challenges. One of them is that there are many Jewish organizations in B.C., and everybody needs a piece of the pie. The need is great, but there are not many industries here.”
She also encountered another challenge. “I found that it’s easier to raise money for the young, for schools and universities, than for the elderly. How do I deal with this? With a smile and an explanation. We organize events and introduce potential donors to the organization. We honor our donors.”
Her conviction that everyone should share his/her wealth comes from her family background. Both her father and grandmother were involved in their local communities on various levels, and Balshine has continued the tradition. “Some people in the community are doing extremely well. They have a responsibility to share. I learned that at home.”
Her approach to finding new benefactors is personal. “I meet with everyone I’m going to ask for donations. If I don’t know them, I look for someone who can introduce us. We have coffee together and talk. I try to share with everyone the importance of Louis Brier for our community. People give to people, not organizations. Of course, you need people skills to do this kind of work. You need to be kind, to smile, to have charm. You have to feel it, to be willing to give from yourself; otherwise, you can’t do a good job.”
With such a personal fundraising strategy, she knows many members of the Jewish community in Vancouver. “I’ll tell you an anecdote,” she said with a smile. “I love opera. Recently, I took my granddaughter, who is 12, to the opera Carmen at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. I introduced her to my friends. When we came home, her parents asked her how she liked it. She said that, of course, the music was great and the show. She also said, ‘There were like 3,000 people in the audience, and my grandma knows half of them.’”
Olga Livshinis a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com.
It was a capacity crowd at Jewish Senior Alliance’s Spring Forum on May 4. (photo by Binny Goldman)
Gyda Chud, co-convener and current board member of the Jewish Seniors Alliance of Greater Vancouver, as well as an original member of the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture, enthusiastically welcomed a capacity crowd of 180 to this year’s annual JSA Spring Forum, which took place on May 4 at the Peretz. The theme was “Retired/Rewired.”
Chud acquainted those attending with the philosophy, programs and purpose of JSA and reminded us that life learning leads to the best quality of life. She advocated that we should all be volunteers, saying, “Volunteers are not paid – not because they are worthless but rather because they are priceless.”
Bev Cooper read her poem about how she came up with the word “rewired,” rather than retired. For Cooper, the word “rewirement” has become her cue to search for ways to ride the waves in the difficult times. And, in the more comfortable times, rewirement propels her to use the opportunity to seek out new challenges.
Cooper then called upon Gloria Levi, social worker, consultant in the field of gerontology and co-author of Dealing with Memory Changes as You Grow Older, to be the moderator of the afternoon’s forum. She spoke of her personal connection to JSA and introduced gerontologist Roz Kaplan, director of the seniors program at Simon Fraser University’s continuing studies.
Kaplan said that most people nowadays will live some 30 years after retirement and that we need to prepare for that time. Retirement is not a destiny but a journey for which we should “pack” essentials and, as with all journeys, some of us will be better equipped and prepared than others for the trip.
With the average life span for Canadians now into the 80s, we were encouraged to keep learning: an instrument, a language, dance steps, the means to rise to challenges and accept change.
We were told we needed confidants, connections, community and having a passion. This journey would be a path to opportunity and, as we age, we should divest ourselves of “extra luggage” to enable us to reinvent ourselves. Most of us got through life identifying ourselves with our work, noted Kaplan, and reinvention would allow us a chance to ease into retirement.
The stages of life usually encompass birth, education, work, retirement, death. It is up to us to fill in the gaps with personal growth. Many of us return to an encore career. Family, friends, fitness, travel, volunteering and various hobbies serve to keep us vital. A recommended read was Creating a Healthy Retirement by Dr. Ronald and Lois Richardson.
After a brief question period, Levi introduced speaker John F. Helliwell, an officer of the Order of Canada, a fellow of the Royal Society and senior fellow and co-director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. As a professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia, Helliwell has written articles on “how to build happy lives,” the topic of his talk, and is a co-editor of The World Happiness Report.
We started by singing “If You’re Happy and You Know It.” Helliwell asked if we were any happier after the shared singing than before, and most, if not all, of us were.
How do we measure happiness? Usually this is not a question asked by our doctor or therapist; rather, we are asked if we are sad or depressed or possess negative feelings. Negativity is not only a state of mind but also affects our physical well-being, Helliwell explained.
An example was given of students in a hotel room who were all exposed to the rhinovirus. Those with negative feelings/attitude generally succumbed to the cold germ, whereas those with a positive outlook were much less affected, with some even escaping being sick entirely. It was also suggested that we need to concentrate more on health building rather than health repair.
Economic factors are far less important to happiness than bonds with other people and assisting each other to overcome strife and difficult circumstances. Iceland and Ireland were given as examples of quality of life because the people living there showed, on average, more concern and care for one another.
Aristotle stated that a fine quality of life brings happiness to individuals in a variety of forms but we all agreed on aspects needed for good quality of life: food, health, trust, freedom (to make decisions and feel actively engaged in one’s life) and generosity (doing nice things for others raises one’s own happiness).
Another example offered by Helliwell was of a care home in Denmark, where the staff had been asked to design the home as if they themselves were to be its residents. Their advice was to do away with uniforms for staff, to dispense with bibs and to make mealtimes variable. At one of the homes, the chef even drove the residents to a local movie theatre and they all enjoyed annual holidays together, more like one would expect if one were with close family.
In a residence where there were two floors, one known as generally happy, the other, unhappy, residents on the “unhappy floor” were asked to design the space in which they would be living in a new building and suggestions were made, followed and increased happiness ensued.
In another instance, a seniors residence was combined with a day care, and seniors and juniors interacted happily, all benefiting, a little like symbiosis. No one broke the rules, nobody wandered away searching for the home they had left – they all felt they were home.
During the question period, it was asked why Israelis are happy even though they live such stressful lives. The answer seemed to be that there really is no time for introspection. As well, all are united in the common bond to continue to defend and build their country and that aim/purpose builds happiness.
A last question was about how we can continue to be selfishly happy if many of the rest of the world seems so unhappy. The answer was, “Whose misery is lessened by our being unhappy?”
After summarizing the two speakers’ talks, Levi spoke of JSA president Serge Haber and his countless contributions to the community through the years and of his being one of those honored at the Louis Brier Jewish Aged Foundation’s Eight Over Eighty (on May 25).
Haber asked everyone to rise for a moment’s silence to mark Yom Hazikaron, commemorating fallen soldiers; he pointed out the Israeli flags in the centre of each flower arrangement, celebrating Israel’s Independence Day. As refreshments prepared by Bagel Club Catering were served by JSA volunteers, Haber thanked those who had convened the forum and emphasized that much of this would not have been possible without the efforts of the amazing staff, Karon Shear and Rita Propp. Shear also took a video of the forum, which will appear on the JSA website.
Herb Calderwood, the afternoon’s musical entertainer, handed out songbooks and charmed the crowd by announcing that he may not know all the songs in the book, as he does not read music, but he asked us to call out our request by number. He delighted us as well with a game of “Name That Tune,” and those who guessed the tune were rewarded with a prize. Door prizes further kept the happiness quotient high and the afternoon came to a happy conclusion, as the audience did indeed leave rewired.
Binny Goldman is a member of the Jewish Seniors Alliance of Greater Vancouver board.
Honoring one’s parents is one of the Ten Commandments. In Judaism, respecting and deferring to our elders is not just a value, it’s the law. That said, the opportunity to honor our elders in front of the entire community doesn’t come around very often. Which is just one of the reasons Louis Brier Jewish Aged Foundation’s Eight Over Eighty is so unique.
On May 25, noon, in the Great Hall at the Vancouver Law Courts, LBJAF will honor eight individuals/couples in their eighties who all have one thing in common: “They have each led by example.”
Four of the honorees are featured in this article: Dr. Marvin and Rita Weintraub, Rita Akselrod, Dr. Jimmy White and Chaim Kornfeld. Next week’s Jewish Independent will feature profiles of honorees Dr. Arthur and Arlene Hayes, Stan and Seda Korsch, Samuel and Frances Belzberg, and Serge Haber.
“I know the eight and they are wonderful,” event chair Mel Moss told the Independent, noting about the planned celebration, “Eight over Eighty is modern, yet staged in a traditional way. It is a tribute. It is light and bright yet respectful, it is a vibrant, swinging and ‘with it’ event.”
Dvori Balshine, LBJAF director of development, said, “This will be an event that the community has not seen before. People have been saying, ‘What a brilliant idea!’…. We came up with something fresh, in a new place and at a new time of day.” Even the nomination process, she added, was incredibly well received by the community
RITA AND MARVIN WEINTRAUB Books and education
Marvin Weintraub was born in Poland and came as a child to Ontario, where he ultimately received a PhD in plant physiology. Rita (Enushevsky) was raised in southwestern Ontario, near Niagara Falls, and graduated in sociology and philosophy. Both studied at the University of Toronto, where they met. They married soon after.
Settling for a decade in St. Catharines, which at the time had a Jewish population of about 500, together they started an adult education series and Rita launched a Jewish library in the synagogue that doubled as a community centre. Some of the librarians still working at the desk were originally trained by Rita.
“I have great faith in the value of education of all kinds, but particularly for Jewish adults and for youngsters,” said Marvin, who taught in the synagogue’s afternoon school. They both became active in Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) and she in National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW).
Marvin took a job at the University of British Columbia in 1959 and the young family moved west, immersing themselves in synagogue and community life. Rita became vice-president of Beth Israel Sisterhood and NCJW, taking special interest in global concerns like Vietnamese boat people and Soviet Jewry. She also brought her dedication to adult education, which she championed in Vancouver as she had in Ontario.
Marvin was elected president of Beth Israel and, later, Pacific Region chair of CJC, during which time he focused on addressing challenges of Jewish schools and helping teachers upgrade their skills.
Invited to the USSR in 1968 by the Soviet Academy of Science to lecture on plant virology, Marvin took the opportunity to smuggle in a suitcase filled with tefillin, tzitzit, siddurs and machzors. He attended shul morning and night for a month, using his serviceable Yiddish to identify daveners who could use the items.
In 1973, with Dr. Sid Zbarsky and Dr. Robert Krell, Marvin began the process that would lead to the first professor and program of Judaic studies at UBC, which now has three full-time and one part-time faculty.
In 1978, he was awarded a Queen’s Medal for service to Canadian science.
When the Jewish community centre at Oak and 41st was being designed, Rita convinced planners to set aside space for a Jewish library. Then Marvin set up a lunch between Rita and Sophie Waldman, during which Rita convinced Waldman to memorialize Waldman’s recently deceased husband, Isaac, with a library. Rita remains chair of the Friends of the Waldman Library and the annual fundraising telethon, which she began 20 years ago. She also has been a volunteer with Shalom BC, welcoming newcomers to the local Jewish community.
Of all her achievements, the library holds a special place for Rita. “It’s the focal point of the JCC,” she said.
RITA AKSELROD From tragedy to action
Rita Akselrod’s early experiences were forged by life in Romania, first under the Nazis, then under communism. At seven, she was barred from attending public school because she was Jewish, so a makeshift Jewish school was formed. She and the other Jews in Bacau were forced to wear the yellow star, were subject to curfews and forbidden from assembling in groups. The men in her family were conscripted into forced labor.
By the time Rita was ready for high school, the Russians had taken over and she was taken by her uncles to high school in Bucharest. Her brother wanted to go to university, but the communist regime wanted him in the army, so he fled the country. The rest of the family soon fled also, making their way to Budapest, then trekking through cornfields to an American-controlled zone before landing in a displaced persons camp in Austria.
There, she met “my Ben,” who she recently lost after more than a half-century of marriage. The couple made their way to Israel. But life was difficult in the state’s earliest years, and more so when Rita lost a baby three days after birth. They chose to move and were helped by Leon Kahn, a friend of Ben’s who had settled in Vancouver.
“Leon Kahn sent us papers and we came to Canada,” she said, acknowledging that when she first looked at an atlas, she was alarmed. “I couldn’t believe that we would come to Vancouver when I saw Alaska close by. When I was in Israel and we were corresponding, I said, ‘What’s Vancouver? It’s cold. It’s near Alaska.’ But we did come.”
Kahn set them up in a room in a shared house that had seen many Holocaust survivors and Ben began collecting junk with a horse and buggy, which he would then sell to used-goods dealers. “My husband wasn’t a businessman,” Rita said. “He came from camps and ghettos, he didn’t know the city, he didn’t know the business.”
But the family succeeded, and later sponsored Rita’s parents, brother and his family from Israel.
In 1979, tragedy struck, when the Akselrods’ daughter, Sherry, was killed by a drunk driver. She was a parole officer who had offered to trade shifts on Dec. 26 so a colleague could spend Christmas with family. The loss spurred Rita to bring the group Mothers Against Drunk Driving to British Columbia. She also became involved in grief support, which was taking place in a church.
“I was speaking to a rabbi and said, ‘Can we have it in the Jewish community? Do I have to go to a church?’” Jewish Family Service Agency started a grief support group and Rita attended. Eventually, they asked her to take it over, which she did for many years as a volunteer. As well, she has been actively involved in substance abuse education programs.
She and Ben were founding members of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre and, for more than 20 years, Rita coordinated the speakers program, which has allowed tens of thousands of young British Columbians to learn about the Shoah directly from survivors. She is a past president and a life governor of the centre.
She also spent nearly three decades on the board of the Louis Brier, stopping only because she needed to devote more time to Ben when he developed Alzheimer’s. She is immensely proud of her work on denominational health, which ensured that faith-based agencies like the Louis Brier were treated appropriately when the province devolved health delivery to regional boards. A master agreement was signed between the province and the boards, and Rita noted that it “was signed in the Louis Brier, in front of the synagogue, with a priest there and other members of the denominations.”
She is a recipient of the YWCA Women of Distinction Award for community and humanitarian service and, on the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, she was awarded with honorary Canadian citizenship in Ottawa as a Holocaust survivor who has contributed to Canadian life through remembrance and education.
JIMMY WHITE Make friends with change
Change has been a constant for Jimmy White. He was born in Ohio but the family moved to Saskatchewan during the Depression. His father ran a store before thinking better of it and moving the family to the coast. Jimmy studied at UBC but, since there was no medical school here at the time, he headed to Toronto to become a doctor. While there, he met Beulah and they returned to British Columbia as a married couple.
Jimmy saw even more of Canada through assignments at military hospitals during the war. When peace came, he took up practice downtown and became an institution in the community.
Beulah passed away young, leaving Jimmy and two daughters. He would later marry Miriam Brook, who was widowed with three girls of her own. Sadly, Miriam, too, has since passed away, but Jimmy said he is thrilled to have five daughters.
In addition to his work and family obligations, Jimmy has been a leading voice for Zionism, as an activist in Young Judaea, then the Vancouver Zionist Organization. He was president of the Jewish Community Council (precursor to the Federation) and of the Richmond Country Club. He was a key fundraiser who helped obtain the land for and construct the JCC at Oak and 41st.
These days, he is the head of the residents council at the Weinberg Residence and enjoys yoga, concerts, bridge, art classes, detective novels and debates on politics and language.
The guiding advice of his life came from his mother, he explained. “She said, ‘Make friends with change.’ In her day, there was a horse and buggy. Then the automobile came in. What a big change that automobile made. And now computers and everything! If you don’t make friends with that, you’re left behind. You don’t have to like it, but you have to make friends with it.”
He was amused by a young visitor recently who came to the Weinberg Residence from a Jewish day school. “One of the kids said to me, ‘You’ve had so much change in your lifetime, now there’s no more change left, there’s no more to discover … iPads and iPods,’” Jimmy recalled. “I said, ‘It’s just beginning.’ He said, ‘What else is there to discover?’ I said, ‘That’s exactly what they said when the automobile was invented and when the computer came along. Somebody’s going to invent an antigravity pair of shoes.’”
CHAIM KORNFELD Never give up
Chaim Kornfeld was born in 1926 in a small town in northeastern Hungary, the youngest of eight children. While his father ran a grocery store and his mother managed the large, observant family, Chaim studied at cheder and yeshivah – until 1944. It was at that comparatively late period in the war when the Jews of his town, and of much of Hungary, were placed in ghettoes before being transported to camps.
In May 1944, Chaim was separated from his parents, sisters and grandmother on the platform at Auschwitz. Dr. Josef Mengele sent Chaim to the right and the rest of his family to the left. His father’s last words to Chaim, before he and the others were sent to the gas chambers, were “Never forget that you are a Jew.”
Chaim survived Mauthausen and Gusen, where he worked in an airplane factory. He survived a death march just four days before liberation in May 1945. Of his large family, only Chaim, a sister and two brothers survived. He finished his secondary education in Budapest and was preparing to enter rabbinical school when the Jewish Agency offered him the chance to go to Israel. He leapt at the opportunity, joined the Israeli air force, and was a founding member of Kibbutz Ma’agan. But educational and professional advancement was limited in Israel’s early years and Chaim took his brother up on a sponsorship to Canada.
In Saskatoon, Chaim taught Hebrew school in the afternoons and evenings, while attending university. During this time, he corresponded with a young woman he had met in the Israeli military, Aliza Hershkowitz, and convinced her to join him on the Prairies. Chaim and Aliza would raise four children (a fifth passed away in infancy).
While at the University of Saskatchewan law school, he served as camp director for Camp B’nai B’rith in Pine Lake, Alta. Practising law continuously since 1960, he is proud to be one of the oldest in his profession.
Chaim is a board member, past president and life governor of the Louis Brier Home. He shares his story of survival and accomplishment with students at the annual high school Holocaust symposium and he swims six days a week at the JCC, where he has been a member for 40 years.
For years, he has served as a Torah reader at the Louis Brier synagogue. Responding to the honor of being recognized for his dedication to community, Chaim said he is embarrassed by the fuss. “I don’t look for honor,” he said. “I never looked for kavods.”
His advice for others? “I would advise people – and I still do in my office sometimes – to never give up. That is my motto in life. Whatever comes up, I won’t just lie down and take it.”
He emphasized his enduring love for his wife Aliza and added, “I always come home for dinner.”
A fundraiser for the Louis Brier Home and Hospital is urging community members to make a two-year commitment so the facility can rely on sustainable funding to plan for the future.
“We are asking for people to consider making a commitment for two years so that we can tell the Louis Brier ‘we have raised this much money, we will know that it’s there for two years, you go ahead and make the plan you need to make that will take maybe two years to come to fruition and to give the maximum benefits to your residents,’” said Bernard Pinsky, co-chair of the Sustain, Maintain and Enhance campaign.
Bernard Pinksy (photo from Louis Brier Jewish Aged Foundation)
The last campaign raised $600,000 in each of three years, Pinsky said, and organizers hope this effort will be at least as successful, if not more. The campaign has been underway for several weeks and culminates at the end of this month. A major celebration – Eight Over Eighty – takes place May 25, when eight individuals and couples will be recognized for lifetimes of dedication to building community.
The campaign is important to the facility, Pinsky said, because the calibre of the home and hospital depends on the support of donors. The Louis Brier does not receive funding from the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver allocations or from United Way, Pinsky said, and the Jewish-specific components of the home’s character are not funded by government allocations.
“In order to make sure that we have the best facilities for seniors in our community the Louis Brier Aged Foundation needs to raise the money to distinguish it from other seniors facilities – many of which are very good, but they do not have the Jewish component,” he said.
Pinsky identified programs and activities such as kosher food, daily services, Shabbat services on Fridays and Saturdays, Yiddish and Hebrew classes, Jewish-themed discussion groups, films, lectures and performances as examples of the type of “extras” the fundraising supports. Louis Brier also has top-notch physiotherapy, art therapy and music therapy programs, he said. The differences made by these services are significant, he added.
“Most people in the Jewish community have had someone connected to them who has been in the Louis Brier and we also know from people who have loved ones, relatives or acquaintances in other facilities that the Louis Brier is a step above in many respects,” said Pinsky. “And we owe it to the people who established this community to give them the kind of dignity and the kind of retirement and life that they would want at this stage of their lives and it’s only us who can help because nobody else will pay for that.”
Harry Lipetz (photo from Louis Brier Jewish Aged Foundation)
Harry Lipetz, co-chair of the campaign with Pinsky, emphasized the Louis Brier’s dependence on the generosity of the community. “The Louis Brier Home and Hospital doesn’t have memberships such as synagogues [do] to draw upon,” said Lipetz, who is also president of the Louis Brier Jewish Aged Foundation. “We simply rely on the entire Jewish community.”
Lipetz said the Louis Brier’s reputation is due to the resources provided by community support. “The level of care that’s provided is probably rated the highest in British Columbia due to the additional funding that the foundation provides annually,” he said. “I am satisfied that our efforts really do bring quality of life to people, as we say, ‘adding life to years and years to life’ is something we are accomplishing.”
Lipetz asks people to take the initiative to support the campaign. “We have a limited ability to reach out to individuals,” he said. “It is a relatively large Jewish community. We would hope that individuals would come forward whether they are contacted or not to support this campaign.”
